Category: Daily Life

I tell the kids we are leaving at 7:15. At 7:15 I find that Sarah is walking Amy to the car (apparently Amy put on her own shoes and stood by the door ready to go) and Noah comes in to get permission for Amy to go. Well, you can’t exactly say, “No” when it is already happening unless you want total anger and chaos. Silly me. I got total anger and chaos anyway.

Sarah gets Amy to the car and Amy won’t get in her car seat so I ask Sarah to return her to the house. Sarah goes to the house and comes back with Amy. I blow my stack declaring “we are supposed to be at the bus stop now. Get her in her seat!” Sarah says, “Well go.” And I reply, “I can’t. My kids aren’t buckled.” I used stronger language and that was wrong and inappropriate. I feel badly over my loss of temper. I am weak.

Amy settles. We drive to Sarah’s friend’s house and pick up two more passengers while Noah’s friend and older brother head up to the bus stop on foot. I drop Noah at his stop and offer the older brother the opportunity to ride in the car with 3 girls. In hindsight, I should have said, “There are three girls in this car!” Nudge Nudge. Either way I am pretty sure he would have said no and I really don’t want to encourage the boys until they get their half brain allotment at age 25. So I drive the girls to their stop and drop them off.

Sarah is either too angry to speak or simply fails to remember to say goodbye to Amy or Amy is admanant that she is supposed to be with the big girls today so we have hysterics as I pull away from the stop.

As I pull up to Noah’s stop, Amy calms. I get her out of the car and she grabs her Dora backpack and stands with the boys. We hear a train in the distance and Amy lights up and says, “I heard a noise. A train!”


Note that the shoes are on backwards but she did them herself and stood at the door ready to go. 

The bus pulls up and Amy declares, “Bus! Noah bus!” The four school children load up and I tell Amy to say, “bye bye” and she tears up. She then wants to play hide and go seek in the yard where the bus stops so she covers her eyes and walks toward a tree. Being on the slow and stupid side I pick her up and throw her in the car rather than letting her get to the tree, count to five, then run to the car. Learn. Learn. Learn!

In the car she refuses to get into her car seat so I close the door and get in the front seat to read the paper while she decides what she will do. She decided rapidly and promptly opened the door. Ok. New trick. So I find the child lock and turn it on (the older kids will love that) and I read the paper some more. I ponder just making the short drive with her unbuckled but that would be asking for trouble. I’m sure I let Murph down when I made that decision. So I wrestle her into the seat and she screams and cries. Once home I figure she will pop from the seat. I unbuckle the chest buckle and notice the enourmous amount of mucus pouring down her face so I go up front to get my previously Amy soiled hanky and she decides to rebuckle herself. Ok. Now she doesn’t want to get out? They get their “let’s screw with the male’s head gene” early don’t they?

We finally get into the house and she is not happy but not unhappy either. I think her cold just has her really down. Plus her normal daytime playmates are not around anymore.

All day yesterday I felt like I was going to stroke out. I mean felt it so strong that I went online to check the symptoms. The fibrillations under my right rib cage were constant. The pressure in my head so great that I felt like someone had a vice on my skull. My arms pulsing. At one point I half way doubled over when a cramp in my right chest cavity hit me suddenly.

Makes you wonder if you are ready to die? I look around and my house is not prepared for me to die. My files are not in order. My passwords not conveniently recorded for my wife. I have journals I am not sure I would want read. I have some innocent things that taken out of context might cause people to question my character. I am not spiritually content. What of my soul? There is no life insurance to help the family. We are so caught up in our own chaos that we have become isolated. We live as hermits amongst thousands of strangers.

Our life force can be extinguished at a moments notice in any nonsensical way. Should we not be prepared for death the moment we leave the shelter of our parents care? While under their care should they not prepare it for us?

All my life I’ve been a good person and try to go out of my way to help others often at my own sacrifice or expense. When I was 8 years old I had a moral delimia. As a scout, we went to a farm to ride horses. I was the last to pick my horse and I had to decide between the largest horse and a donkey. The event was for the scouts and one of the older sisters of another scout was there and would ride whichever beast I did not choose. Even though I wanted to ride the largest horse, I felt the chivalrous act would be to give her the large horse while I chose the donkey. That sums up the way I have lived my life. It is probably the act that put that type of behavior in motion for me. Of course, you could say I just let myself get walked on an used.

I do not know how to ask for help. I have been trying to get a job since the beginning of the year and keep getting turned down with excuses like “you are over qualified” or “we can’t afford you.” Now my family is down to the final pieces of our last roll of toilet paper and the gas is almost gone in the car. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve been so helped that my karma has run out. It’s time to go work at McDonald’s.

Had a decent bit of advice today. I was told “water down your resume.”

A New Day!

Let’s start the day off with a PayPal donation link:

This Morning

Went to sleep last night at roughly 12:30. Tried to convince myself to stay up and work but I needed a couple of hours of shuteye. Woke at 5am to lie in bed pondering how our last few coins should be spent–toilet paper and maybe a half gallon (1.8 liter) of gas. Thoughts shifted to “how can I get out of bed and get dressed without waking the dog because if she wakes before I am dressed to take her out then she will pee while I am getting dressed.” That thought bought me 15 minutes of lounging time. Rose at 5:40 get get dressed and clean up the mess that apparently some rogue horse snuck into our house and left for us last night.

I claim the dog is house broken. It now knows that once I take it outside, the minute we come back insides is the minute to empy bladder and bowels.

* Questions regarding a quote sent to client. Ballpark included.

* Discussion on status of 2nd quote over the phone. Working quote now.

* Bath. It’s kind of hard to express how significant this is.

* Cooked dinner

* 3rd grade parent orientation

* Watched Penn & Teller – Bullsh*t! on legalizing drugs. I for one don’t believe Penn has never done drugs.

* Spoke with a friend about selling his product

I have no voice

I have lost my desire to speak

I build sand castles

This one I built too weak

Too many gains of sand

Too much thinking

Not enough water to drink.

Yes, this one is large

But it is weak.

This one was fine

But in my clumsiness

I stepped on it.

It is ok. We made repairs.

But then I stepped on it again.

The first castle crumbled some

And caused more damange

To this one fine creation.

The second castle is neat.

It stands alone

Separate from the others

But not untainted by their shadows.

This castle has sound engineering

And award winning architecture

But it stands alone.

There is sand in this bucket

That wants to be a castle.

It is so eagar.

Its particles spill from the container.

What will it be? Nothing without me.

However, I screwed up the other three.

There is sand in this bucket.

Stay there and I’ll protect thee.

These castles are built upon a hill.

It is strong and provides a wonderful foundation.

I undermine it. I steal its dirt from the base

To use for the castles upon its crest.

I undermine it and destroy the foundation

That provides for the other crumbling castles.

One other castle beneath this hill

Washed away so long ago.

The sands spread among the tears of the Ocean

Perhaps return to the beach one day to become

An insignificant part of yet another

Poorly built castle.

Oh look! I was mistaken.

I build my castles in the sky

Now the rain comes

And washes my sand to the by and by.

–DM 8/04

* Last night sat down with a partner of mine and discussed a quote for a website. Some more details to be worked out. Everything will collapse before anything comes to fruition but at least I’m not going down without a fight

* A client paid a same sum last night into paypal. 3 days later it will arrive in my back account provided the account hasn’t been shutoff by then. Of course the payment will just about cover the fees that have accumulated at that point.

* Another resume submitted! This one for a DBA position. I would enjoy a fulltime job just working on a database.

* Called to inquire about a computer tech job at a doctor’s office. Will fax resume to them shortly.

Student: How do I ask for help?

Teacher: Just like that.

A New Day!

Let’s start the day off with a PayPal donation link:

This Morning

Woke this morning at 2:05am to a smell that I was certain meant the dog and a major dump. I was not looking forward to cleaning this one up and initially pulled the covers over my head to ignore it but it permeated strongly everywhere and I got up to find it. I searched and searched. As I looked in the office and woke a little more I realized that I wasn’t smelling dog mess but skunk. Something must have had an altercation with a skunk last night directly behind the house. It was horrible! And usually I don’t mind the smell of skunk.

Well I was awake enough to get working but allowed the bed to pull me back in. I muted the television thinking the light would awaken me and encourage me to get dressed and get to work. At 4am I turned the television off. At 6am I rose.

The bus driver did as he promised and turned into the neighborhood. I almost convinced him to do the full loop! Can you imagine the parents excitement as the bus drove past their house! Unfortunately he must have changed his mind and took the first shortcut out of the neighborhood. But this holds so much promise! Now to figure out the middle school stop.

* Earlier I got some database redesign concerning the login security accomplished on my overseas project

* The kayak washing has begun to prepare it for sale.

* The domain transfers appear near completion. Left to do: a) make sure the inlaws can retrieve their unretrieved mail and b) send a letter cancelling the previous hosting.

Kudos to the new host! The transfer was seamless!

* Touched base with one client regarding additional work and scheduled it for 1.5-2 weeks out

I submitted a resume! The job actually referenced ColdFusion!

Making payment arrangements with Cingular so that they don’t cut off my phone. Kind of hard to get a job if people can’t call you. Good. Done. Now they cut me off on the first of September.

This picture and caption are a perfect example of the stronghanded, Orwellian tactics that the Bush supporters wish to see implemented throughout our country. They are insecure submissives that lack control of their own lives and would happily give up their freedoms to have someone impose control on them. By George [pun] I’ve figured it out! Pro-Busher’s need therapy!!

Amy is such a big girl now. It’s fun to watch her as she makes decisions. She is eatting her first cheese toast (that I know of) and she goes to her table and pulls her chair out all without a thought never moving her eyes from Dora. Then a big yawn!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think the same thing about each of the children but the older ones often engage me more while they are doing their wonders and I don’t get the pleasure of writing about them.